
Whore's Breath - Static Black [Stemms Audio - 2023]Static Black takes in four new ‘walls’ from Cincinnati, Ohio's Whore’s Breath. Each of the four tracks hits between the eleven & eighteen-minute mark- moving between more muffled ‘n’ hazed static affairs. To hollowed-out & numbing bass-bound walling. The release is a digital release put out by Stemms Audio- which is the projects own label. Artwork-wise we have a photo of a grey, black, and white rushing shape- not quite sure what it is- but it works well within the context of the release, and the tracks featured. The release can be downloaded here
We open up with “Untitled Static 1” here we find a mix of muffled/ merged drag ‘n’ judder- which is weaved with cluttering static hiss ‘n’ bay. There’s an effective feeling of slurred & weathered confusion about this ‘wall’, and one mind keeps trying to hook on to just one tone/ pattern, but keeps getting sidelined by another.
Up second, we have “Untitled Static 2”. This brings together a hazed buzzing judder- with a set mass of circling static hack ‘n’ jitter. The main buzz/ judder hints at being almost harmonic- and initially, you feel this may develop, but of course, it doesn't. The static elements are nicely ill-defined in their feel- seeming to drift like grainy smoke over the whole thing.
Track number three is “Untitled Blacked 1”- this finds a constantly droning bass tone descent- wrapped in very ill-defined sub-tone rattle, bay, and batter. This track feels very numbing & hopeless- giving one the impression of a constant flowing ‘n’ rushing mass of thick tarry liquid into a vast & endless abyss.
Lastly, we have “Untitled Blacked 2”. Here we have again a barren bass drone- but this time we get a selection of distant/far-off machine churns ‘n’ chugs. Initially, this felt maybe a little too close to the last track- but if you get locked into the machine tones it’s effective enough in its numbing/ blurred industrialized walled noise vibe.
Static Black is another worthy selection of walled noise from Whore’s Breath - with each track offering something(slightly) different. It doesn’t rewrite the genes tropes- but it’s all executed well enough.      Roger Batty
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